The bishops have decided...

"After thanking “all who have stood firmly with us in our vigorous opposition to this unjust and illegal mandate,” the bishops stated that

we wish to clarify what this debate is—and is not—about. This is not about access to contraception, which is ubiquitous and inexpensive, even when it is not provided by the Church's hand and with the Church's funds. This is not about the religious freedom of Catholics only, but also of those who recognize that their cherished beliefs may be next on the block. This is not about the Bishops' somehow "banning contraception," when the US Supreme Court took that issue off the table two generations ago. Indeed, this is not about the Church wanting to force anybody to do anything; it is instead about the federal government forcing the Church—consisting of its faithful and all but a few of its institutions—to act against Church teachings. This is not a matter of opposition to universal health care, which has been a concern of the Bishops' Conference since 1919, virtually at its founding. This is not a fight we want or asked for, but one forced upon us by government on its own timing. Finally, this is not a Republican or Democratic, a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American issue."  Catholic Culture.org

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=13677

 

I have been waiting to see what the Bishops' Conference would adopt as a position.  This is it.  They had little choice.  Having "blotted their copybook" in the matter of clerical and religious molestation of children and youths, they would have faced a further revulsion on the part of the laity if they had not faced up to this.

The federal government IMO has no idea how difficlult this will be for a long time.  Will many people leave the church over this?  I do not know, but IMO a faithful remnant would be preferable to a mass of cafeteria Cathiolics.  pl

Comments

[Tyler]

I don't know why the bishops are so shocked about Obama turning on them. This is a man who sat in a church that preached about the evil of the US. Religion has always been a tool to this president for political ends. Perhaps this will check the "drift" of the Church in America. Repeatedly it has tried to appease the left in matters of immigration and taking a softer stance towards various other social issues.

Maybe the bishops are waking up to the fact that trying to follow the route of many Protestant denominations who are trying to be the first to ordain a transsexual gay bishop is folly? There is a yearrning, I think,for the serious adult faith of pre Vatican II. The question is are the American bishops willing and brave enough to say that the path of a Catholic is hard and requires sacrifice as oppossed to the instant salvation that makes up so much of American Christiannity?

[William R. Cumming]

Is there a formal doctrinal position of the Catholic Church as to what the 1st Amendment of the Constitution means when it established Freedom of Religion? Can you be Catholic and swear fealty to that Amendment?

Disclosure: Raised a Quakerterian--Mother Quaker, Father Presbyterian. And largely ignorant of almost all religions and their doctrines.

[turcopolier]

WRC

Since this position by the bishops is a defense of religious freedom for all and they do not seek to impose their position on the govenment, but rather seek to be free to deal only with their own institutions and those that have some church tie, I find your question about the first amendment to be incomprehensible. Is this merely an exercize in Papist Bashing on your part? Did your grandma tell you that priests are BAD PEOPLE?

Do you interpet their principiled position as an attempt to create an "establishment of religion?" It is clearly not that. As I have said before, perhaps it is time for the Catholic Church to cut off any ties to other than core church functions. pl

[JohnH]

Ah yes, religious freedom. The bishops would have more moral authority if they supported people's religious freedom to oppose unjust, pointless, and expensive wars. And, as you point out, it would give them more moral authority if they attended to the bad behavior of their own.

But the bishops seem to have little interest in applying church teachings uniformly. Rather, you have to conclude that this is about church power and the freedom to act as badly as they choose...which makes the bishops objectives indistinguishable from those of Netanyahu or BP or Goldman Sachs.

[Charles I]

For many a secularist like I, who prosecute their, er, freedom from that God with catholic fervour, this isn't even a religious question, whether communing with Canada's new Cardinal or toasting a fatty with a Rasta.

Full disclosure: I support court ordered medical treatment for minor children of faith-based treatment-averse parents in medical extremes, eg, a critical blood transfusion for the Jehovah's witness child, happens from time to time up here.

The argument is made that as modern contraceptive technology has medical benefits beyond contraception, this is a medical and resources question analogous to the decision over whether to add a specific drug to a regulated formulary list. Or ban certain plant God gave man, not the state, domain over. Political, for sure.

If a Church of the Ten Commandments can bless soldiers for success before they are dispatched to war to kill, presumably because the killing fills some secular AND Church mandate, how big a corruption of faith is submitting to a secular medical/resource/political decision, really?

If every life is sacred from conception, and conceptive intercourse compulsory, why do we allow the war on cancer, aren't those cells sacred too? and on and on with the hare-brained questions. . . .

Who is to decide what is God's and what is Caesar's, and are Caesars' decisions about God or governance and public health?

To me, to many I think not of the Church, this is SamuelBurke's question about the military and unlawful orders, only in church.

The question and the answer are not, in an industrial democracy with modern medical technology, to my mind, some kind of assault by Catholic haters. Rastas piped up with this, the same gang of doctors, politicians, secularists and insurers would be after them too.

[Anna-Marina]

If only the bishops had showed the same resoluteness during race for the Iraq War that resulted in thousands and thousands of “aborted” pregnancies (due to mothers’ death) and thousands and thousands of dead children. The bishops were willing to excommunicate a raped 10-year child and her mother for a life-saving abortion but there has not been a single excommunicated liar and war profiteer, whose bloodthirstiness led to the loss of numerous lives in the US and ME.
Boys’ club.

[turcopolier]

Anna-Marina

I believe in redemption.

"The bishops were willing to excommunicate a raped 10-year child and her mother for a life-saving abortion" What's the citation, and why was it "life saving? pl

[turcopolier]

Charles I

I am pretty much a secularist as well but I do not accept the idea that the state owns us and can dictate to us the content of our ethics and morality. Thoreau felt that way also. Let us see if the careerist hierarchy are willing to go to prison for this as he was. Perhaps Canadian ideals of good government and order are not the same as American.

For those who wish to argue under the principle of the separation of church and state. I would point to the fact that the underlying justification for our civil criminal law against murder, incest, bigamy and the like is in religion. If not, then why should I not kill my enemies?

Samuelburke's advocacy of mutiny in the armed forces is hardly the same thing. Soldiers are sworn to obey legal orders, Civilian citizens are not. A question: would you have obeyed the Nuremburg Laws and helped the Hitler government act against the Jews? Those were legtimate law.

"aren't those cells sacred too? and on and on with the hare-brained questions. . . . Who is to decide what is God's and what is Caesar's, and are Caesars' decisions about God or governance and public health?"

Charles. Cancer cells are not human beings. Who is to decide? That is the issue here. pl

[turcopolier]

JohnH

I agree that the bishops have lost much of their moral authority. Let us see what they are willing to do to regain some of it. pl

[Cameron]

I've probably missed something, but I thought that the administration caved on the issue of church-funded contraception and said that Catholic institutions didn't have to pay for it. If that's the case, I don't see exactly what the bishops are talking about, because it sounds like they are (or believe they are) still being forced to take actions contrary to church teachings.

[turcopolier]

WRC

I have been counseled by SWMBO that my initial response was too harsh. I agree. The essence of this question lies in the right of citizens to resist what they see as unjust and immoral law. pl

[Jill]

I'm still not sure what is being discussed. ?? Is it that Catholic employers (hospitals, universities, etc) should include contraception (birth control pills, tubal ligations, vasectomy, etc) in their group medical plans? If that is the government's demand, it makes sense to me.

If Catholic institutions can deny birth control coverage in their employer provided insurance, can others not decide they object to far more expensive medical procedures because of religious reasons?

I do find it surprising that this issue out of all other possible issues has the Church up in arms. Odd.

If I am mistaken about what the Feds were asking of Catholic institutions I would be grateful for a plain Englisih, non-dogma explanation.

Thanks

[turcopolier]

Camern

Money is fungible. By giving their assent to the government deal, they would endorse practises contrary to their faith. For once they are not seeking a legalism and tricks to compromise like the politicans that they are. pl

[turcopolier]

Jill

"Is it that Catholic employers (hospitals, universities, etc) should include contraception (birth control pills, tubal ligations, vasectomy, etc) in their group medical plans? If that is the government's demand, it makes sense to me"

This is not about what you think or consider reasonable. I agree with tyou so long as such coverage does not involve means of contraception that kill the unborn. pl

[Tim Vincent]

Let's see.
The government mandates that the Church's insurance carrier provide "free" birth control.
The carrier adds the cost to the Church's premium.
WHO is paying?
Only Obama lapdogs (eg. the media) and really obtuse people think this "compromise" is a "compromise."

[Stephanie]

Respectfully submitted:

The first two links below are related to a Brazilian case in which the mother of a 9 year old and the child's doctors were excommunicated after the daughter's abortion. I hope that the dangers, mental and physical, to children of such immaturity carrying a pregnancy to term are obvious to all of us here.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/brazil-rocked-by-abortion-for-9yearold-rape-victim-1640165.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/4968239/Brazils-president-attacks-Vatican-for-condemning-nine-year-old-rape-victims-abortion.html

"Police believe the girl was sexually assaulted for years by her stepfather, possibly since she was six. That she was four months pregnant with twins emerged only after she was taken to hospital complaining of severe stomach pains."

This incident is from Mexico. The girl was forced to proceed with the pregnancy in spite of problems including seizures. Normal labor was impossible for obvious reasons and she had to undergo a Caesarean (which operation the Brazilian church would have imposed on the other girl, if they'd had the chance).

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-19/world/mexico.abortion_1_quintana-roo-abortion-debate-abortion-rights?_s=PM:WORLD

"The Roman Catholic Church vocally opposes abortion in Mexico, and the topic has long been controversial there..."

[Jane]

The Bishop's unprincipled position is an attempt to dictate how people may use part of the compensation the worker earns from a secular job with a church-affiliated institution. While the Bishops currently recognize that the worker has the right to spend a salary obtained from Church funds f for whatever actions are in accord with the individual's own religious persuasion, they claim that they have the right to bar that same individual from using compensation provided in the form of insurance for actions which while they are in accord with the individual's religious beliefs, are not in accord with the beliefs of the Bishops. The claim is that if the individual is allowed to exercise his own religious freedom, that this violates the Bishop's religious freedom. In short they are claiming that their religious beliefs about the use of insurance earned by a worker are violated if they cannot control how the worker uses that insurance according to the worker's own religious beliefs. The Bishops believe that their own religious beliefs should control the actions of the workers with respect to the use of insurance. The only reason the workers get insurance is because they have earned it as part of their job -- once it is earned it's the worker's resource not a gift of church funds nor from church hands.

If the Bishops believe that it is an infringement of their religious freedom if workers in their institutions can use a resource obtained as payment for actions the church does not approve of they cannot morally pay anyone. What moral difference does it make if contraception is obtained through the use of money the Church pays as salary or obtained through the use of insurance that the Church provides as compensation for work?

[turcopolier]

Jane

"they claim that they have the right to bar that same individual from using compensation provided in the form of insurance for actions which while they are in accord with the individual's religious beliefs"

They DO NOT claim that. Their assertion is that the church should not be required to fund whatit considers to be immoral conduct. pl

[turcopolier]

chatles I et al

"this is SamuelBurke's question about the military and unlawful orders, only in church. The question and the answer are not, in an industrial democracy with modern medical technology,"

How is morality different in an "industrial democracy?" Is it that you simply consider Catholic morality to be outmoded by "progress?" If that is your view this smacks of Huxley's "Brave New Work." Soes modern medical technolgy justift the destruction of fertilized eggs or unborn children? The Catholic church does not think it does.

As for Samuelburke his questions were not questions of law. I answered those. To wit; a service member can refus an order. He or she should then expect to justify that refusal before a court-martial. SB's questions were of the ethics pf whether or not national military leaders should refuse an order from the national command authority. This is an individual decision. SB wants me tp tell peeople in such a position what they should do. Idiocy. pl

[Tim Vincent]

Why use 1,000 words when 100 will do?
Your twisted reasoning would have the employer (in this case the church) provide a free lunch and maybe limo rides to and from work - with the employee specifying the color and type of limo.

Insurance is a BENEFIT subject to the rules of the employer/payer.
Don't like the rules?
You're free to quit.

And BTW, where did it get settled that health insurance pays for every little routine hangnail fix, birth control pills, etc?

Do you expect your employer to pay your car insurance?
Homeowner Insurance?

[Anna-Marina]

Actually, the victim was 9-year-old
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1883598,00.html

[Walrus]

First of all, I need to declare my religion - Orthodox Agnostic.

Surely there must be a "work around" for this matter?

[Jane]

The Bishops are not required to fund contraception. What they are required to do is to stop interfering with how an individual they employ chooses to do with the compensation they provide for the worker. It makes no moral difference whether that compensation is provided as coin or insurance -- once the worker has earned that compensation they have the right to do what their own religious and moral beliefs entail and the Bishops have no right to interfere.

[The Twisted Genius]

I don't believe this is a matter of funding, but a matter of mandating the Roman Catholic Church to provide health insurance that covers contraception to its employees. I have read several commentaries that claim covering contraceptives may be cheaper for the insurance companies than not covering it and having to cover the consequences of reduced use of contraceptives. As the full medical costs of these policies are calculated by the insurance actuaries, the Church may end up paying more for insurance coverage that specifically does not cover contraceptives.

From the Bishops' statement, I gather that the Church would be fine with universal health care even if it provided free contraceptive services. It does not pay taxes so these contraceptive services would not be "provided by the Church's hand and with the Church's funds." The Church does not condone those services. They are against Church teachings and are sinful. However, I don't see the Bishops calling for a nationwide ban on contraceptives. They just want the government not to force them to go against their teachings and faith.

[turcopolier]

Jane

We/I understand your point of view. I would ask you to stop haranging me/we about it. pl